Well,
I’m back with another interesting but important avatar of Zoho
Wiki – Online Team Collaboration Tool. [Catch the earlier post on
Zoho Wiki as the Help Authoring tool within Zoho ]

You might be wondering how we guys manage our teams considering the many
products across varied domains, ? “Keeping it
small & nimble” is the open secret 😉 And what about the tools? Well, no prize for guessing it; the popular collaboration
tool that most teams use is
Zoho Wiki.

Zoho Wiki @ Zoho Corp

There are multiple
product team-Workspaces under the parent Zoho organization wiki. So,
right away, each team maintains their own independent space that allows
collaboration within the product team members as well as with other
product teams.

Zoho Wiki is so flexible that there are teams that use wiki for
simple collaboration needs like discussing the development of the product features, sharing market
knowledge, uploading usability designs etc. Also, teams like
ManageEngine Applications Manager with different
sub-teams like developers, QAs, marketing, support, tech writing use
Zoho Wiki for managing the entire team.

Ok, Let me elaborate on how ManageEngine Applications Manager team members go about their daily chores.

New features that are to be rolled out for an upcoming release are
explained by the feature-owners in a wiki document. Discussions & comments
follow and the feature is enhanced. QA & tech writing members are made
aware of the new features that are in the pipeline. The marketing folks also chip in with their inputs.

QA then gets ready with the test plans and they are stored in Zoho Wiki, after which they are shared with the team members.

Next, the Tech writer comes up with the help content for the new feature and the
help documentation, which is shared with the team for feedback

Once,
validation kick starts, the validation reports are stored in Zoho Wiki.
Test plans can be corrected and updated then & there. Help
documentation also undergoes multiple revisions. This ensures that the test plans & help
documents are always the latest and they are not locked up in any
server.

Team members opt to ‘watch’ the wiki and get notified on the changes happening to the project.

Another
advantage of using wiki is, that all departments of the team function
cohesively. For eg, the support team that interacts with the customer is
able to voice its concern and get the customer’s point of view while testing.
Also, the support team maintains an extensive troubleshooting guide online using
Zoho Wiki.

Release coordination is also primarily routed through Zoho Wiki.

All
process documents like QA process, Support process, etc are maintained
in the team wiki. Best coding practices doc is updated and shared with
the team.

Zoho Wiki is used to maintain the software resources licensing and lab PC details for quick team reference.

Training material also finds it’s way into the wiki. It is easy to keep it updated & share it with partners & customers.

“Our
product is over seven
years
old and plays in the Enterprise Application Performance Management
space. ZOHO Wiki helps good ideas to bubble up from all streams within
our team, be it QA, development, marketing, product management etc. Wiki
also helps us to streamline the development processes we use
in-house”, says Gibu Kurien Mathew, Product Manager, ManageEngine
Applications Manager.

“The end result is great. We are able to make
better
Engineering and Product Management decisions.”

Your
team size may be Five or Five hundred. But at the end of the day, you
need a simple but effective collaboration tool to deliver quality
product & service to your customers.